


Nornheim

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Infinity War Fix It [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: Creation among the dead.





	Nornheim

There was no loom, but a fine network of silvery threads was being woven, suspended in the air above the soft, spongy ground of Nornheim. It was outside of Yggdrasil, nestled in and among its roots, and not a place that most mortals could ever hope to reach. To be precise, the ground wasn't exactly ground at that particular location, but something like a skin covering the Well of Sights. Sometimes beneath the skin, shadows shifted that looked almost like one of the lesser norns, hollows for eyes and deeper shadows for mouths, fingers reaching up as if they would shred the membrane keeping them beneath the water. They weren't malevolent, but they were never meant to be caged.

A knotted pattern formed within the network of strands, twisting in and around itself, growing larger and almost looking like a picture. It shifted with every blink, the pattern not staying the same from moment to moment. Tufts of Wanda's red-hued magic were woven into each knot, tendrils wrapping around the silvery threads and pulsing as if there was a heartbeat at the center of the knots. None of them were in sync, though the largest knot at the center of the growing tapestry beat in time with Wanda's dead heart.

Frigga looked over at Wanda, the air of a patient teacher about her. She was doing the weaving, pulling the essence of the strands up from the membrane over the Well and twisting it to fit the pattern that the Norns had originally set for the universe. It tried to resist, fragment or slip out of the fabric. Wanda would then blast the fabric, and her magic would stick to it. The tendrils snaked out, almost as if they were alive themselves, and Wanda focused on them, twisting them around the fragile threads to strengthen them and keep them solid. She was _forcing_ them to stay intact, turning each silver thread into a shimmering red and silver one, and made them branch out to touch and tangle with others. She didn't have a set pattern in mind, not like Frigga did, but simply moved them wherever they felt right.

"That's it," Frigga murmured in approval. "Keep going. This is only the beginning."

"I don't know what you're making."

Frigga laughed gently, shrugging. That made some of the newer threads twist in different ways, but she flicked her fingers and they still wove into the larger pattern as she wanted them to. "The overall pattern will be as the Norns wished, but we're introducing changes. Free will. Choice."

"But they're _Fate."_

"Who says that choices won't still lead you to your fate?"

Wanda frowned, then sent out her frustration into the web that Frigga was making. "So I was fated to be here? I had to watch my family die, I had to help create monstrosities, I had to subvert everything I ever believed, destroy the man I love..." Her hands faltered and she blinked back tears as they fell to her sides. "I can't accept that. The Norns could not be so cruel."

"They're not mortal," Frigga said gently, edging closer to her. "They don't comprehend cruelty as we would."

She looked down beneath her feet, at the thin membrane separating her from the faceless norns. "And them? They're not the all powerful ones."

"No. But they do the work of them. They see to the fates of each mortal life."

"Are they angry at what we're doing?"

Shaking her head, Frigga drew up more energy from the membrane, creating threads out of it. "No. These are the ones displaced by Thanos' destruction. This realm is overrun with the dead souls that he created, the norns without a function. Normally, it should be just the Norns themselves, not all these."

Wanda could hear the distinction between norn and Norn somehow, and nodded as if she understood. But she didn't, really, and had the irrepressible urge to lift her hands, writhing red magic swirling around them, and rip everything to shreds. She wanted to destroy the membrane, tear it all up, let the norns free and push them into the webbing that Frigga was carefully weaving together. Her sticky red tendrils of magic would find places for them, give them purpose again.

"What do you want to do?" Frigga asked, only curiosity in her tone.

"I want to push them into that webbing," she said, magic whipping between the membrane beneath her feet and the strands that Frigga was creating. "I want to break everything apart and _fix it._ If this isn't how it was supposed to be anyway, I want to change it all."

Spreading her arms wide, Frigga grinned. "We're making a new world, Wanda. We're building something based on what the Norns had in mind, but this will be a world of our making. Our choosing. Our will and mind and intent." More threads flew out of her hands, grafting themselves onto the others that were suspended in midair.

For a moment, Wanda could almost see the pattern that Frigga was making, and it was so breathtakingly beautiful she thought her heart would stop.

Then she lost the shape of it when she blinked, and frustration set back in. "I'm not good at this like you are."

"We do what we're good at, and each of us has different gifts. The Norns made us this way, and we follow the guidelines they give us."

"You just said we have choice!"

"So we do. Within the boundaries of our souls."

Anger spiked deep in Wanda's gut, and she found her magic brightening. It was strong, feeling more and more alive, begging to be used.

"Then I choose to do this. I chose to fix everything that went wrong. And if the Norns don't like it, they can go to a hell of their own making."

Wanda let go of her magic, and it burst forth in a wave that shattered the membrane, set the norns free, and pushed all of the threads together in a tangled mass. It felt like the energy was pouring out of her, like her very soul was going to be shredded in order to fuel the magic and give energy for the dimension that they were creating. 

Just before she lost consciousness, she thought it looked exactly like Frigga's pattern.

***

Some distance away, sitting on the roots of Yggdrasil itself, Loki sat with his arms crossed over his chest and a surly expression on his face. "I was supposed to be able to do that."

He hadn't been complaining to anyone in particular, but the Norns heard him and laughed. It was the sound of rustling leaves and the howl of a winter's storm, so he stiffened slightly and gradually turned his eyes toward them. Skuld stood there, looking like the bent over crone of Greek mythology, straggly white hair trailing down to the ground. "We hadn't given you the gift to do such a thing," she chided him.

"Why not? I could learn. I could be up to the task."

"What was it that you told your brother?" Skuld rasped, voice now sounding like hollow bones scraping across a gravestone.

Loki jut out his chin in a defiant manner. "The sun will shine upon us again."

"Well, then. Rather than sulk like a spoiled child, do what you do best. Build us a sun."

She vanished even as he opened his mouth to reply, and a shiver rolled down his spine.

 _Norns,_ he wanted to curse, but his skin crawled and he couldn't make his lips move to form the syllable.

Instead, he moved farther away from the Tree and tried to think of how he could play to his strengths. He knew he wasn't as good with the _spá_ as his mother was, as Wanda seemed to be. She thought of it as chaos magic, and that perhaps was an accurate representation of what she did. Wanda's style of casting wasn't as controlled as Frigga's, and she seemed to bring in elements of _seiðr_ to mix in with the _spá._

That gave Loki pause. The styles of magic he had been taught always had strict rules, always had to be "clean" and not mixed with the other forms. With the way he had been able to touch and manipulate the Tesseract, he knew he could manipulate space. He had always been good with sleight of hand and pocket dimensions even before he had drawn on its power. It hadn't been _seiðr_ exactly, which is why no other Asgardian caster had ever been able to really sense it, and he had always known where the hidden paths along Yggdrasil were located. 

Incredulous laughter bubbled up inside of him. He'd never thought of it that way before. He'd been good at something no other Asgardian had been able to do, and they'd called it trickery and nonsense and _cheating,_ but he'd simply been gifted at magic they'd never known about. Perhaps it was a product of his Jotnar heritage, perhaps it was because his mind was simply able to process it. Whatever the reason, he had been thinking too small, too literal, too _Asgardian._

His magic still worked in this place, and he couldn't help but think of Strange calling his magic the mystic arts. Because they didn't have separate names for anything on Midgard, it seemed, and his style of casting was different again from Frigga's. That didn't make it any less valid, and the portals he had created weren't necessarily different from the ones Loki used to make.

Finding a firmer stretch of ground, he was far enough from the Well of Sights that he couldn't see Frigga or Wanda at their weaving. He could see the Well of Mimir, but didn't need to use its waters for strength. He had a strength all his own, a skill that was _his,_ a magic that no one else could perform.

Reaching down deeply into the source of his magic, Loki began opening portals and pulling energy together to create a sun of his own.


End file.
